In a meeting of health officials on Saturday, civil surgeon Dr Renu Chattwal asked the hospitals in the district to be ready with more isolation beds and ventilators for swine flu patients.

In a meeting of health officials on Saturday, civil surgeon Dr Renu Chattwal asked the hospitals in the district to be ready with more isolation beds and ventilators for swine flu patients.

It was also decided in the meeting that all the samples of suspected swine flu patients would be given to civil surgeon office by 5 pm daily so that these may be sent to PGIMER, Chandigarh, next morning. This has been done so to avoid unnecessary long stay of the suspected patients in isolation wards.

So far, seven swine flu cases have been diagnosed in Ludhiana hospitals, out of which two belong to Ludhiana.Latest guidelines regarding swine flu sample collection, transportation, treatment of patients and contact etc were given and discussed.

District epidemiologist, Dr Anil Verma said, "Ludhiana district has at present 59 beds and 28 ventilators."He said that there was no shortage of VTM bottles, PPE kits, N-95 masks, medicines and other logistics. All the hospitals were asked to procure the same from civil surgeon office.